Back at the club, Elijah left Cole to take up his position, menacing everyone with his huge biceps – except for Alexis, who checked him out all night long. He had to check in with the other bouncers to see if anything insane had happened while he was gone since his shift would not end until the club closed its doors in the early morning. Cole could change and keep working, but he tended to call it a night after a trick. So, he just needed to sort out his money, and then he could get the hell out.

Walking into Logan's office was one of the worst feelings in the entire world. 

The thing about Logan was that he operated in a different galaxy of existence. Interacting with him felt like tiptoeing through a minefield blindfolded. He managed to take every word everyone said and twist it up to fit the delusions in his head. Most people learned to keep their mouths shut around him. The criminal organizations that dipped their fingers into nearly every other club in this city would not touch his place with a ten-foot pole. That was how insufferable he was. It was a miracle he had not been killed yet.

Cole should have gotten used to it over the years, but there was simply no adjusting to a man like Logan. Normally, he could square his shoulders and weather it the way he did the entire job – by compartmentalizing. But the hour with Gideon left him feeling oddly vulnerable, and he was honestly afraid to face Logan when he felt like a bruised peach.

He went to find Alexis behind the bar and bummed a cigarette off her first. Stood out back and hugged himself against the night air that chilled his nose and fingers. One of the barbacks came out with an armful of broken-down liquor bottle boxes and tossed them into the dumpster. He gave Cole a once-over, nodded his head, and disappeared back inside. Cole breathed the smoke in and then back out. He was not a smoker, but he found them soothing sometimes.

Back when Cole first got placed in a group home for boys because he ran away from his foster families too many times and the social worker decided that at fifteen, he was old enough not to need a family anyhow, he had been given the opportunity to get a job. This seemed like an amazing stroke of luck because the whole reason Cole kept running away was to work and make money. He needed to pay all the bills while his father was in prison.

But, at fifteen, he had not understood that the hourly wages he could make after school would never cover the water bill, let alone the mortgage or the medical bills piled so high that they would end up foreclosing on his parents' house anyway. His family had been in an accident when he was in middle school; his mother was killed, and he and his father were so banged up that it took them weeks to get out of the hospital. 

He did not even know what homeowner's insurance was, let alone that he had to pay it. He just wanted to do what he could to preserve the place where he grew up until his father was free and could take care of him again. Not that he had done a great job of that before he got locked away, but Cole could dream.

He met Logan through another one of the boys at the home, whose older brother was one of the club's bartenders at the time. Working for Logan was the best money Cole could make at his age without turning to the street corners to peddle drugs. And to Cole, who had already messed around with a couple of other boys, the fact that Logan ran a gay club was a bonus. He got to stock the bar and look at hot guys all night long.

And Logan, as Cole said, seemed so likable and trustworthy the first couple of times they met. Within a month, he thought all his problems were going to go away because Logan offered to take care of the medical debt and let Cole pay him back without interest. He signed on the dotted line. But within a month, the house was foreclosed, he had stopped going to school, and his dad told him never to come to visit him at the prison again. Then he  found out exactly why Logan wanted to get Cole in his debt.

Logan was the type to do a lot of people all kinds of favors so that he could hold it over their heads. Strings were always attached when it came to him. And Cole owed him a lot. About two hundred thousand dollars. Giving him a job dancing, which paid better than bar backing, even though he was still underage. Covering his ass so that the social workers did not come looking. So, when it was time to cash in, Cole had to lay back, think of all those favors and the gun that Logan kept in the top drawer of his desk, and take it.

The cigarette burned down, its heat kissing Cole's knuckles, which meant he could not stall any longer. He went inside and knocked on Logan's door. Tried to blame his twisting stomach on the couple of drinks Gideon gave him, even though that was hours ago now. Logan called him in, and it felt like walking in front of a firing squad as he opened the door.

Logan sat at his desk behind a sleek laptop and piles and piles of paperwork. There were two chairs opposite the desk with a little table between them that had an ashtray on it. The window was cracked open, airing out the stale scent of weed and cigarettes that stuck around anyway. Cole took a step into the room.

"Close the door," Logan told him without looking up. He had his glasses on, another thing that made people think he was a nicer guy than he was. They made him look intelligent and sensitive. Cole blew out a breath and shut the door.

"Sit," Logan put aside a piece of paper and looked up at him. Cole perched on one of the chairs and looked Logan right in the eyes, brave face on as best as he could manage. He pulled out the white envelope with Gideon's money and the fat orange manila envelope with the cash he had made from dances earlier in the night and pushed them across the desk. Logan removed his glasses and put them aside.

He thumbed through the bills, then swiveled in his chair to run them through a money counter. It whirred as the bills flew through, loud enough to drown out the ticking of the clock over the door. Cole realized he was twiddling his thumbs in his lap and tucked his hands under his thighs. Get the money and get out. Go home where he could smoke a bowl, curl up under the covers, and stare up at his little glow-in-the-dark stars.

"Three thousand." Logan rapped the stack of bills against the desk to get it all lined up nicely.

This was no surprise. Instructions to give the client whatever they wanted tended to only come down from Logan if there were thousands of dollars involved. The money in those cases was pre-determined. Otherwise, it was up to Cole to collect for whatever specific services he provided. Three thousand was more than usual, but not unheard of. It did make Cole wonder about the fact that Gideon just let him say no to bondage when he was paying that kind of money. The corner of the folded hundred in the sweatpants of his pocket poked his thigh, reminding him that he should disclose it to Logan. He sealed his lips.

"You get...what, twelve hundred?" Logan thumbed through the bills, counting them out loud. He handed them over with a hard stare, "Hope you earned it."

Cole shrugged. Logan frowned but said nothing as he turned to count the smaller bills from the dances Cole had given before he left with Gideon.

"Five-hundred twenty-five." Logan turned around and gave the bills back to Cole, who began dividing the total sum of his nightly earnings up. Logan sat in his chair and tapped his fingers together like a cartoon villain, a smirk on his face like he knew something Cole did not. But he always looked like that, so Cole was not too concerned.

"Here's fifteen hundred," Cole laid the bills on the desk. "Towards my debt. And here's two hundred for the dancing fee."

Logan pulled out his evil accounting book in which he tracked the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Cole owed him, which would never be paid off. He wrote down the amount while Cole tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair and side-eyed the roach in the ashtray. Logan tucked the book back away and ducked under his desk to get into the safe, where he could store the money away and get change for Cole's dancing fee. It was a hundred sixty for a full night, so Cole got two twenty-dollar bills back. He folded the money into the pocket of his jacket and stood.

"Thanks," he said as he made a run for it.

But apparently, Logan was only being nice so far because he was basking in the knowledge that he had something truly heinous to say after. When he spoke, his tone sent a chill down Cole's spine, a fight-or-flight response that froze him in place before he could get to the door.

"Stop. I need to talk to you about something."